Late Night Live — Full program podcast · ABC Australia

Yanis Varoufakis on war and drugs, and 200 years of the State Library of NSW

·54 min·3 clips

Varoufakis says Greece's right wing is using his prosecution to signal that the outer right is here to stay.

Late Night Live begins with David Marr in an affectionate mood about libraries. It is a modest opening, but it does real work in setting the frame. The first major conversation is with Yanis Varoufakis, who comes on as a familiar presence on the program over many years. Marr picks up an earlier exchange about Donald Trump. He asks whether Trump still seems mad. Varoufakis gives a sharply negative view of Trump’s character, calling him a very poor excuse for human nature and a very shallow person, while still stressing that unpredictability is not the same as irrationality. The conversation keeps circling what that means in practice. The discussion then moves into Varoufakis’s current legal trouble in Greece. He says he is due to be tried on 16 December for promoting drug use. Marr presses on the charge and on the gap between the allegation and Varoufakis’s own account of events, but Varoufakis refuses to linger on the details of the case. Instead he widens the frame. He describes the Greek political landscape as unusual within Europe. The traditional right remains coherent there, and in his telling the fascists are still inside it rather than forming a separate outer-right challenge. He contrasts that with France, Germany, and Italy, where far-right politics have taken different forms. Varoufakis then describes the Greek prime minister as a neoliberal who laughs at the prosecution while going along with it. He argues that the government has a deal with fascist ministers, and that key ministries have been handed to them to push their cultural wars, including justice, migration, and health. The claim is that the prosecution is part of a wider bargain. The tone stays combative and unsentimental. Marr lets the exchange run, and that patience matters. Varoufakis’s answers are long, often dense, and sometimes more political diagnosis than direct reply. That gives the conversation a rough kind of authority. It is not polished into neat segments. It builds by accumulation. The program later turns to a very different subject. Marr speaks with Richard Neville about the 200th birthday of the State Library of New South Wales. The shift brings the show back to a civic institution that has lasted long enough to deserve a proper salute. Across both parts, the episode keeps the same late-evening intelligence. It is interested in argument, context, and memory. It is also comfortable with a little theatricality when the subject calls for it. The result is an episode that moves between scandal, history, and public culture without losing its footing.

As heard by us

A wide-ranging political interview, then a warm tribute to the State Library of New South Wales.

Late Night Live gives Yanis Varoufakis room to stretch out in a conversation that moves through Trump, Greek politics, and the legal trouble he says he now faces in Greece over promoting drug use.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want politics, provocation, and a library birthday in one sitting.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Late Night Live — Full program podcast